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In a recent You Tube video, Matt Cutts from Google answers the question which is better (by better, we mean which does Google...
In a recent You Tube video, Matt Cutts from Google answers the question which is better (by better, we mean which does Google...
Monday, 31 May 2010 09:15
A woman in the US is suing Google for leading her (via Google Maps) onto a highway, where she got hit by a car reports Search Engine Land.
While the scenario is ridiculous to most reasonable people, it is an illustration of why you should put terms on your website, mainly to protect yourself from people who don't want to take responsibility for their own decisions.
This is particularly the case if you link to other sites or contain any information that could be considered 'advice'.
Thursday, 22 October 2009 14:22
Several articles this morning are reporting the impending announcement of deals between Microsoft, Twitter and Facebook to integrate real time status updates into the Bing search engine results.
Sunday, 19 July 2009 12:01
Recently spotted - an ad by a local organisation who were looking for a "website marketer". This person would be responsible for the design and maintenance of the online presence of this particular organisation, as well as the development of 'strategic partnerships' and 'response-driven digital marketing strategy and initiatives'.
Ok - design, maintenance and a strategy. Good to have. Expecting one individual to work on maintenance on one hand and strategy on the other will either present a stretch for someone operating at a maintenance level, or boring and tedious tasks for a strategic operator. But you never know, some people like working at both levels for a bit of variety.
But what inspired this post is the skills/qualifications being sought:
How realistic is it to expect to find someone who (regardless of the level they operate at) has a marketing orientation as well as abilities in all those other areas?. It would be a very rare individual indeed who did all these things well, and you would assume the organisation in questions wants that - as opposed to someone who is rubbish at one or more.
You tend to find these web related skills grouped something like this (if grouped at all, some people are very good at one thing and that's ok too):
The point being, not all together. Of course it depends on what level of 'knowledge of web design and programming' they want.
Why does this happen in the web field? You don't see ads such as this:
Wanted: Experienced test pilot. As well as at least 20 years of commercial airline experience, applicants must also be skilled in designing avionics systems, and have a demonstrated ability to deliver quality in-flight service including the design of refreshment plans and menu's. They also must have a degree in meteorological analysis and forecasting, and impeccable grooming. Ability to land a plane in a river with no loss of life would be considered advantageous.
From a web professional's perspective, this kind of recruitment strategy does not help our industry. If organisations are serious about doing well online, they need to get serious about recruiting the right skills for the job. Like most other business disciplines, there is a range of skills required and if you don't have an organisation big enough to recruit a team with the relevant composite skills then you should probably consider out-sourcing parts or looking at other flexible options to get the skills you need. Otherwise it simply leads to compromise of quality, missed opportunities and stressed, over-stretched employees. Not to mention less than wowed customers.
Tuesday, 14 July 2009 08:37
’Lifestyle Lift’ Will Pay $300,000 in Penalties and Costs to New York State. (Thanks to Matt Cutts for the tweet on this).
A plastic surgery provider was caught (and done) for publishing fake positive consumer reviews online.
Many an ethically challenged marketeer or black-hat SEOer have probably tried this and called it 'smart marketing'. But "Astroturfing" which Wikipedia defines as "formal political advertising or public relations campaigns seeking to create the impression of being spontaneous grassroots behavior" was described by New York's Attorney General as fraud and illegal - not to mention cynical and manipulative. Go the legislators!!
Apparently the company decided to control negative messages about the company - dooh! How about you improve your product and services instead. And you could be upfront about how you are solving any problems. The cost to the company in terms of negative PR is probably much greater than the 300k fine.
Many businesses publish customer testimonials on their websites, which naturally are going to be positive. If you do this, make sure they are genuine. If you provide a customer forum, accept all comments (barring those that don't comply to standard forum rules) and take the opportunity to show people how you have gone about rectifying any problems or faults. And make sure you use the feedback to improve your products and processes - complaints are a great source of information about what is not working for your customers!
And if you are going to write commentary or product review pieces about your own business - make sure you include and appropriate disclaimer .
There is another side to this of course, and that is negative public outrage and comment stirred up by political parties that exploit citizen ignorance and emotions - but that's a story for another time (and someone else's blog!)
Wednesday, 08 July 2009 10:00
So, Google has announced it is developing an operating system for personal computers.
I'm all for competition in a market dominated by a product that is sold knowing it does not work as it supposed to and frankly drives me nuts.
But I'm less enthusiastic about a product designed (at least initially) to "to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds".
A hardware/software combo product (like netbooks) that does this for people who only do stuff online is all very well, but Google will need to think deeper if they want to seriously challenge Microsoft's operating systems. Window's may have been designed in an era before the internet, but a lot of things we did then - we still do now. And cloud computing is a) still hotly debated and b) yet to take off.
A great deal of what I do on my PC has nothing to do with the web and I have no desire to have to be online to do it. I want to be an individual - isolated in my cocoon thank you very much.
Maybe doing everything online is the way of the future but I think that future is a way off yet, and it will be one greatly more concerned about security, privacy and individual identity. We may not want to be permanently and inextricably connected as a small cog in a very big system. You could argue that Google's thinking is based on current reality and assumptions that could significantly change.
Guess we'll see...
Sunday, 22 February 2009 09:12
Apparently Second Life is on it’s last legs despite being ‘close to profitable’. There’s a few high profile web applications that are fun to use, but frankly I can’t see how they could make any money to keep the operation going much less provide a return on whoever has enough money to take a punt and invest. It's the sort of thing that you ponder "Nice idea, but....".
Second life was one that I never really got enthusiastic about. The fun of virtual worlds is in the unique environments and challenges that are presented. Frankly, one that’s filled with the some of the same people and the same conversations that make the real world a trial doesn’t appeal. Its a bit like that very popular game, The Sims. After a while, one finds something more interesting to do.
